Young man's body lay hidden for hours after car crashed off Sheffield Parkway in heavy rain

Robert Cumber

A young man crashed and died on the Sheffield Parkway just months after another driver 'aquaplaned' and hit a barrier near the same spot, an inquest heard.

Jonathan Sellman was heading out of Sheffield in heavy rain when his car veered off the road, smashing into a lamp post and tumbling down an embankment at Catcliffe near junction 33 of the M1 motorway.

It came to a rest near an old railway line, where the 22-year-old, who lived on Langsett Road, Sheffield, was found dead several hours later on Easter Monday, March 28, last year.

An inquest today heard how a police officer who passed the scene minutes after the fatal crash had briefly lost control near the same spot that morning after hitting what he described as 'standing water'.

Sheffield Coroner's Court was also told another driver had lost control on that same stretch of road on January 9 that year, hitting a barrier but escaping serious injury.

A police officer who attended the earlier collision said she found up to two inches of water pooled on the carriageway, which she believed was down to debris blocking the drains.

Mr Sellman was on his way to Nando's in Doncaster, where he was assistant manager, when he crashed to his death that morning.

His father alerted police after he failed to turn up for his shift, and he was eventually located that afternoon using the 'Find My iPhone' app.

Sergeant Lord was on his way to another fatal collision when he passed the scene of the crash at 7.25am that morning.

He did not notice anything amiss but footage from his car, in which one of the lamp posts can be seen leaning slightly, showed there was water on the road.

Mr Lord recalled hitting a patch of water at that spot and briefly 'aquaplaning'.

That stretch of road lies on the Sheffield-Rotherham border but is the responsibility of Rotherham Council.

Richard Jackson, highways assets and drainage manager for Rotherham Council, said video footage that morning did not show anything he wouldn't expect as the slope of the road meant water would normally run across t he surface in that pattern.

A post-mortem examination found Mr Sellman, who was born in Macclesfield and attended Sheffield Hallam University, had died from multiple chest injuries.

His father Ian told how Johnny, as he was known, had been a regular churchgoer and did humanitarian work which included volunteering at an orphanage in Mozambique.

Mr Sellman's flatmate Tara Lockwood: "I'm so glad that I met him and had the opportunity to be his best friend."